I was also concerned about this when the idea first came up, and think it good & natural that you brought it up.
My concerns were assuaged after I noticed I would be similarly happy to promote a broad class of things by excellent bloggers around these parts that would include:
A new book by Bostrom
A new book by Hanson
HPMOR (if it were ever released in physical form, which to be clear I don’t expect to exist)
A Gwern book (which is v unlikely to exist, to be clear)
UNSONG as a book
Like, one of the reasons I’m really excited about this book is the quality of the writing, because Nate & Eliezer are some of the best historical blogging contributors around these parts. I’ve read a chunk of the book and I think it’s really well-written and explains a lot of things very well, and that’s something that would excite me and many readers of LessWrong regardless of topic (e.g. if Eliezer were releasing Inadequate Equilibria or Highly Advanced Epistemology 101 as a book, I would be excited to get the word out about it in this way).
Another relevant factor to consider here is that a key goal with the book is mass-market success in a way that none of the other books I listed are, and so I think it’s going to be more likely that they make this ask. I think it would be somewhat unfortunate if this was the only content that got this sort of promotion, but I hope that this helps others promote to attention that we’re actually up for this for good bloggers/writer, and means we do more of it in the future.
(Added: I view this as similar to the ads that Scott put on the sidebar of SlateStarCodex, which always felt pretty fun & culturally aligned to me.)
I was also concerned about this when the idea first came up, and think it good & natural that you brought it up.
My concerns were assuaged after I noticed I would be similarly happy to promote a broad class of things by excellent bloggers around these parts that would include:
A new book by Bostrom
A new book by Hanson
HPMOR (if it were ever released in physical form, which to be clear I don’t expect to exist)
A Gwern book (which is v unlikely to exist, to be clear)
UNSONG as a book
Like, one of the reasons I’m really excited about this book is the quality of the writing, because Nate & Eliezer are some of the best historical blogging contributors around these parts. I’ve read a chunk of the book and I think it’s really well-written and explains a lot of things very well, and that’s something that would excite me and many readers of LessWrong regardless of topic (e.g. if Eliezer were releasing Inadequate Equilibria or Highly Advanced Epistemology 101 as a book, I would be excited to get the word out about it in this way).
Another relevant factor to consider here is that a key goal with the book is mass-market success in a way that none of the other books I listed are, and so I think it’s going to be more likely that they make this ask. I think it would be somewhat unfortunate if this was the only content that got this sort of promotion, but I hope that this helps others promote to attention that we’re actually up for this for good bloggers/writer, and means we do more of it in the future.
(Added: I view this as similar to the ads that Scott put on the sidebar of SlateStarCodex, which always felt pretty fun & culturally aligned to me.)